Blood Vow (Blood Moon Rising) Read online

  Heat titles by Karin Tabke

  BLOOD LAW

  BLOODRIGHT

  BLOOD VOW

  Anthologies

  MEN OUT OF UNIFORM

  (WITH MAYA BANKS AND SYLVIA DAY)

  BLOOD VOW

  KARIN TABKE

  HEAT

  NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2012 by Karin Tabke.

  Cover photograph by Claudio Marinesco.

  Cover design by Rita Frangie.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  HEAT and the HEAT design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Heat trade paperback edition / December 2012

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Tabke, Karin.

  Blood vow / Karin Tabke.—Heat trade paperback ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-101-61356-6

  1. Werewolves—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3620.A255B57 2012

  813'.6—dc23

  2012026296

  To my readers, thank you for hanging in there with me on this wild and wonderful ride!

  And to those hearts who love two . . . thank you for inspiring me.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  One

  STUNNED, LUCIEN AND Rafael watched helplessly as the traitorous immortal wolf Fenrir vanished in midair, taking Falon with him. No amount of horrified staring made them reappear, and long minutes later Rafe forced himself to look at his brother. Just behind Lucien stood their equally stunned packs, Vulkasin and Mondragon. With them stood Anja, Rafe’s chosen one. Or rather, the female Rafe had chosen to mark in order to save Falon’s life. The pale Siberian beauty stood tall and regal, a glorious smile splitting her face.

  Rafe looked past her gloating and back to his brother. Deathly pale, Lucien’s wide eyes stared into the night sky as if he still hoped Falon would magically materialize before them. Rafe shivered hard then, remarkably, even feeling a twinge of compassion for his brother.

  Which was beyond comprehension considering what Lucien had done. Taking Falon as his own, marking her when he knew how Rafael loved her. It didn’t matter that the Blood Law was on his brother’s side at the time. Now, it meant shit. Falon was his! As she always had been and would always be.

  Because even after giving her up, even after marking Anja, Rafe had never stopped loving Falon. And now, his beloved was gone! Vanished. Bone-numbing fear settled deep within him.

  Lucien’s long mournful howl shivered through Rafe. Instinctively, Rafe answered his brother’s desperate cry, calling to Falon who, if she were to survive, would be living a nightmare as the captive of the traitorous Fenrir. The wolf who, because he had been rejected by his parents and his pack nearly one thousand years ago, turned to witches and black magic and teamed up with the Slayers to kill his own kind. Now, with the Blood Moon rising imminent, that accursed wolf wanted Falon as his chosen one to set the foundation for his dynasty.

  It would not happen!

  As Rafe’s howl dwindled to nothing more than a deep rumble in his chest, he struggled for control. For insight. For a way to rescue Falon. For a way to bring her back to him, where she belonged.

  Falon! Rafe called to her with his mind, at the same time as Lucien.

  Help me! she cried.

  Where are you? Lucien desperately asked.

  I don’t know. Her strangled voice faded into the night.

  I will find you! Rafael vowed.

  “Gather the swords!” Lucien commanded as he strapped his own weapon to his back. “We’re going hunting!”

  Rafe growled, not in disagreement, but furious desperation. “Your lie caused this.” Rafe sneered in his brother’s face. “Because you refused to believe that your chosen one was Slayer, Falon is gone.”

  Lucien shook his head. “Regardless of the past, Brother, this was destined to happen.”

  “I would not have marked Anja,” Rafe hissed. He moved in toe to toe with his brother. “You would not have had any right to, Falon!” Rafe lowered his voice to a deadly whisper. “I swear to every god that exists, if Falon dies because of this, I will skin you alive.”

  Lucien shoved his brother away. “We can argue whose fault it is when she’s safe. But one thing we won’t be arguing about is that she’s mine. Remember, I gave her the choice to stay with me or return to you. She chose me.”

  He strode past Rafe to the open container, housing the crates of poison swords they had come to retrieve to transport north to the final battleground.

  Six weeks from now, the Blood Moon would rise, and beneath it the entire Lycan nation would arm themselves with these swords against their mortal enemy, Slayers. Only one faction would survive. The swords would stack the odds in the Lycan’s favor. One nick from the poison metal
would render a Slayer helpless in less than a minute, making the delivery of the true death, decapitation, a breeze.

  “I’m not waiting on these swords,” Rafael said as he strapped his double scabbards on and sheathed his own swords. They thrummed with vitality, eager to kill. Like Rafe, his swords craved Slayer blood. “Not while Falon’s scent is fresh.”

  Lucien stopped in his tracks and lowered the end of one of the heavy crates. “We go together.”

  “I’m going with you!” Anja said quietly but firmly from behind Rafe.

  He turned, irritated that she would insert herself in this matter but could he blame her? He was going after the woman he loved. Anja knew there was no threat or amount of begging she could do that would keep him from going after Falon. She had no choice but to go along with him, no doubt hoping that some harm would come to Falon and with her gone, Rafe would finally learn to love Anja. But as he’d told her from the beginning, it would never happen. Rafe would love only Falon. No woman could replace the space she occupied in his heart. Dead or alive, Falon was the only woman who would ever hold his heart and soul in her hands.

  Roughly, Rafe ran his fingers through his hair and begrudgingly nodded. He had no choice. While he had no love for Anja, she was, for the moment, still his chosen one. For Falon’s life, Rafe had promised his brother he would mark another before the next full moon. Honor bound, he had. He regretted every moment since. Except that Falon’s life had been spared.

  He nodded again and turned to the packs Vulkasin and Mondragon. Once a united powerful pack, so powerful nothing but Slayer black magic could harm them, and now? For the past sixteen years they were split straight down the middle because Lucien had never believed that Rafe slew Lucien’s chosen one because she was a Slayer. He believed Rafe had slain her for personal gain, to control the pack, not co-alpha as they had done. Their mother’s people, Mondragon, had followed Lucien, while his father’s people, Vulkasin, stayed with Rafe. No one had benefited from the split. They were stronger as one united pack.

  Now that the truth was out that Mara was a Slayer and not a mere human as Lucien was so sure she was, it should heal the aching wound of the blood feud.

  Rafael shook his head. If anything, the packs would fight over Falon. When Mara had returned from the dead, and shown herself as the Slayer she was, Lucien did what Rafe had thought he had done sixteen years ago. He killed her. She died a true death. So the proof of what Rafael claimed all those years ago voided the Council’s verdict, giving Falon, his chosen one, to Lucien as replacement for the one Rafael took.

  He should not have been shocked when Lucien admitted Mara was a Slayer. Shock aside, Rafe had been infused with so many emotions, predominantly fury at his brother for refusing to see what he knew to be the truth about Mara. But the Blood Law prevailed: an eye for an eye, and Rafe had been forced to give his chosen one to his brother in exchange for the one he took from Lucien. It had been a lie! And because of it, Falon had not only laid with his brother, but allowed his mark and returned it. Damn it all. They were as separated now as the day Lucien rode off with her barely alive in his arms. Rafe swiped his hand across his face. To save Falon’s life, Rafe swore to Lucien he would mark another before the full moon. And so he had just this day. Had he waited—Fuck! Had he just waited . . .

  Unease shifted through Rafe. With the proof that Mara was a Slayer, and a Clan Corbet Slayer—the worst of the worst—Lucien had violated a cardinal Blood Law. He’d lain with a Slayer, the act punishable by death. It would not matter that the bitch had used her black magic to trick him. Lucien was about to mark her when Rafe killed her. Lucien would have brought her into the pack. She would have bred half-breeds and destroyed them all from the inside out.

  Rafe shook his head not wanting to think of the consequences of Lucien’s foolhardy choices. He thought of Falon, of her in his arms again. His blood warmed.

  As Rafe saw it, by the Blood Law Falon was his again. But convincing Lucien of that would not be easy. It would be impossible. Would he kill his brother to possess the one thing they both loved above their own lives?

  Rafe’s heart tightened again when he thought of the part of the family that had been lost to him all these years. He would give his right arm for the two families to reunite. But there could be only one alpha. Neither he nor his brother would step aside. But could he, despite all that had passed between them for so long allow the council to take his brother’s life? Mentally, Rafe set that reality aside. He had only one focus at the moment.

  He raised his nose to the wind and said to his brother, “He takes her north.”

  Lucien’s jaw tightened as he nodded and said what they both feared. “To the battleground.”

  Despite Fenrir’s release from the ring he had been held captive in for the last three hundred years, it warmed on Rafe’s hand as if the wolf still resided within it. Skeptically Rafe raised it and regarded it with confusion.

  “Why does it glow?” Lucien asked, stepping closer to eye the rich luminescence of the ruby. “The wolf is gone.”

  It recognizes its own kind.

  Lucien and Rafael started at the old crackling voice.

  Gleeful laughter reverberated around them. Even the others heard it. Wide-eyed the men looked wildly about for the source of the noise. Anja grabbed Rafe’s arm, moving closer for protection.

  “Gilda!” Rafael called, recognizing the druid witch’s voice. When Rafe commanded the wolf from the ring to save Falon from the fatal wounds Master Slayer Balor Corbet had inflicted on her, Fenrir had destroyed the witch rather than honor their centuries-old bargain. Twin souls each century in return for the immortality and power Gilda had bestowed upon Fenrir. Immortality he used to partner with the Slayers to kill wolves. He was a traitor among his own kind.

  Had she returned for their twin souls? She had the power to take them. Her tiny hunched-back form manifested itself before them in wisps of scarlet fog. “He destroyed my physical body, but not my magic!” she shrilled triumphantly.

  “Will Falon live?” Lucien demanded.

  The old witch cackled but did not answer.

  Rafe looked at Lucien who stepped closer to the specter. Thrusting his right fist toward her, he showed her the ring.

  “What power does it hold?” Rafe demanded, staying on high alert. He didn’t trust the old bat any more than he trusted Fenrir.

  Watch out for her, Rafe. She wanted our souls ten minutes ago, Lucien warned.

  Rafe mentally nodded. Let’s see what she wants now.

  Gilda’s energy sparked and crackled around them. “The Eye of Fenrir holds the same power it has always held.”

  Rafe shook his head, confused. “Fenrir was the power in the ring.”

  “Nay! ’Twas his prison. He is gone but the power remains.”

  “What power? How do I call upon it? How do I use it?”

  “Foolish Lycan, the power your Great Spirit Mother instilled to restrain that traitorous wolf all these years. The power she used to create man from wolves! The wolf has flown but the power remains!” Gilda cackled. Her fluctuating form dropped lower so that she faced Lucien and Rafe. “It is the key to unlocking the power of the three,” she mewled.

  Frustrated, Rafe swiped his hand across his face. “Define the power of the three, Witch!”

  “Three hearts of the two bloods must beat as one to defeat the black heart of Fenrir.”

  “You speak in riddles,” Lucien snarled, stepping closer. “What must we do?”

  “Destroy that accursed abomination!” Her voice turned cagey, bitter. Furious.

  The hair on Rafael’s neck stood strait up. “How?”

  “Take that girl from him. He understands the untapped power within her. He will exploit it for his own gain.”

  “What if he kills her before we can save her?” Lucien asked, the pain of the question car
ved on his distraught face.

  She cackled. “She is his only weakness. Your chosen one’s heart he must win to attain the greatness he covets.” Gilda cackled as her eyes settled on Rafe, then Lucien. “That wolf will not harm her.”

  “Why is Falon the only one?”

  “She is of the two bloods.”

  Rafael knew that. Vulkasin and Mondragon blood were as much a part of Falon as of him and Lucien.

  “What happens when Falon tells that piece of shit to go to hell? What will he do to her then?” Lucien asked.

  “He will not harm her! It has been foretold by the gods that she is the one of the two bloods and the one pure of heart he searches for. His deformity is so severe and his heart so black only one such as she can balance it. To harm her would be to harm himself. He is greedy but not stupid.”

  “How do I call upon the power of the ring?” Rafael quietly demanded.

  “Simply call upon it.” She coughed roughly, fighting for breath. “But it is not enough to destroy that miscreant of a wolf.”

  “By gods, Witch, spit it out!” Lucien growled, raising his fists to the specter. “What must we do to destroy Fenrir?”

  “There is only one true death for Fenrir. The girl must cut his black heart out with the Cross of Caus.”

  “What the hell is that?” Lucien demanded.

  “’Tis the sword that drew first blood,” the old witch wheezed.

  Rafe looked at Lucien. I will not leave Falon at the hands of that beast. We go for her, then the sword.

  “You must retrieve the girl. It will take the power of the three to unearth the Cross. Go now, before the door forever closes!” Gilda’s maniacal laughter rang through them with the force of a dozen church bells. “Then bring me Fenrir’s heart, and I will strip the Slayers of their magic forever!”

  “How do I know you won’t destroy us when you have what you want?”

  “Bring me that wolf’s black heart, and your debt will be paid. I give you my word.”

  “Where is the sword?” Lucien shouted.

  Gilda’s voice lowered to just above a whisper. “Where it all began.”